DNA is in every cell of our body, telling it what proteins to produce. We inherit the DNA in our cells from our parents, thanks to which we have many similarities. It has the shape of a double helix, similar to a huge spiral staircase, and each rung on this staircase is made up of a pair of nucleotides. When DNA is copied, errors sometimes occur, and these errors are known as mutations.
We bring to your attention interesting facts about DNA
1. Bdelloid rotifers are microscopic animals that have remained exclusively female for 80 million years. They reproduce by borrowing DNA from other animals.
2. If you had to type 8 hours a day, one word per second, it would take you 50 years to print the human genome.
3. Wasp poachers instead of poison inject their victims with a virus that suppresses the immune system and allows the parasitic wasp larva to grow inside the victim. Scientists have discovered that this virus is unlike any other virus on Earth. It is over 100 million years old and appears to have fused with wasp DNA.
4. If you suddenly undergo a bone marrow transplant, your blood DNA will contain the donor's DNA, which has led to false arrests in the past.
5. Siblings have 50% of common genes, just like parents and children.
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6. DNA is damaged about a million times a day in every cell of our body. Fortunately, our body has a complex system for its recovery. If this were not the case, it would lead to cancer or cell death.
7. When it comes to invertebrates, then earthworms are our closest relatives. We have more DNA in common than we do with cockroaches or even octopuses.
8. Four families in Iceland have DNA found only in Native Americans. Evidence indicates that the Vikings brought the Native American woman back to Europe about 1,000 years ago.
9. The International Space Station has a hard drive called the "disc of immortality." It contains the DNA of people like Lance Armstrong and Stephen Hawking in case of global disaster.
10. Hands Greenberg - a girl who looked like a child all her life, died at the age of 20. Scientists believe that her DNA could be the key to biological immortality.
11. About 40% of our DNA consists of the remnants of ancient viruses that at the dawn of evolution infected the cells of our ancestors.
12. According to DNA research, the Polynesians visited Chile in the 1300s and overtook Columbus, setting foot on American soil nearly 200 years earlier.
13. About 2 grams of DNA could contain all the world's information stored in digital form. This is a very compact way of storing data.
14. Scientists have recorded a song from the Disney cartoon ("It's A Small World After All") in the DNA of a bacterium that is resistant to radioactivity so that in the event of a nuclear disaster, people in the future or other life forms can find it.
15. Zambian doctor John Schneeberger was accused of sexual assault. He implanted a tube with another person's blood, and when they took blood from him for DNA, he was able to deceive specialists. In the end, they managed to detain him.
16. Human DNA is 99.9 percent the same. The difference is only 0.1 percent.
17. The genetic content of an egg can be replaced with a man's DNA and then fertilized with a sperm. Thus, two men can become parents of a child.
18. The DNA in all your cells can stretch 16 billion kilometers if you spin it. This is roughly the distance from Earth to Pluto and back.
19. While there are sites offering genetic tests for saliva to confirm your origins, scientists warn that this is a kind of "genetic astrology" and should not be taken seriously.
20. 50 percent of your DNA is identical to that of a banana. In general, all living things are genetically much closer than is usually assumed.
21. Scientists have determined that the half-life of DNA is 521 years, and after 1.5 million years even DNA, preserved at its best, will not be readable.
22. Due to the destruction of DNA, it is unlikely that we will ever be able to clone dinosaurs or other prehistoric animals.
23. German police once took DNA samples during a jewelry heist. Samples pointed to twins Hassan and Abbas O. Both denied involvement in the crime, despite the fact that the police knew that one of them had committed the crime. They could not determine which of them committed it, since the DNA was almost identical, and according to German law, suspects could not be held indefinitely. Thus, the police had no choice but to release the suspects.
24. All people of non-African descent have traces of Neanderthal DNA.
25. During the Hornslet Deep Burial Project by Danish artist Christian von Hornslet in 2013, a time capsule was lowered into the deepest part of the ocean. The capsule contained samples of blood, hair and animal DNA. The goal of the project was to preserve DNA so that extinct species could be brought back to life in the future.